Engagement Meter: The top social posts of last week

Visa, Whirlpool and Dixie topped the charts with stories of athletes, students and "deadzones."

Maybe it’s the Olympic spirit—brands that took home the gold on social media last week had messages that focused on the theme of building connections, between new and old friends. Visa leveraged its Olympic sponsorship, while Dixie and Whirlpool promoted brand campaigns.

Unmetric, a social-media intelligence firm, uses an analytics platform to track brands with the highest amount of engagement for posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Unmetric’s engagement score rates each post from 0 to 1,000, depending on the amount of user interactions.

Visa has been an official worldwide sponsor of the Olympics for 30 years, and this year the brand’s theme is all about universal acceptance. The brand captured social media attention last week with this 30-second spot featured the story of Syrian refugee Yusra Mardini, a member of "Team Refugee," the first Olympic team made up of refugees. In the ad, viewers see how Mardini had to swim a boat to safety after it nearly capsized during her escape from Syria. This post generated 2,906 likes and 1,024 retweets. The brand has been using the #Rio2016 hashtag, as well as the brand-specific #TeamVisa.

Dixie

Dixie’s took its new campaign "Be more here" to Facebook with a post featuring a one-minute video about "Dixie Deadzone Diners," areas with no cell service that make it easier for people to connect with each other in real life. The voiceover explains, "So you can enjoy things like real-life status updates, laughing with your face, and not an emoji and offline dating." Dixie will be setting up outdoor diners in "deadzones" in Los Angeles later this month. The Facebook post received 7,200 impressions, 217 comments and 2, 100 shares.

Whirlpool

In this touching video, Whirlpool shares the fact that thousands of kids miss school because they don’t have clean clothes to wear. "When I wake up in the morning and I find out I have no clean clothes, I usually end up just staying home," says Vanessa, a 4th grader. The video then shows how Whirlpool is helping, delivering a washing machine and dryer to a school. The initiative is part of the brand’s "Care Counts" campaign, which gives students access to washers and dryers in their schools. This Facebook post received more than a million views, 5,000 impressions, 1,717 shares and 368 comments.

In an Instagram post that received 909 likes and 5,227 comments, the social messaging app posted a humorous photo about the how texts with "k," "lol," "true" and "haha" are half of all the messages someone sends.

Brazilian soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, who is currently competing in the Olympics, is pictured with his family in this Instagram post from clothing brand Sacoor Brothers. Posted on the day of the Olympic Games opening ceremony, the item reads, "Gather the family together for the big opening of the Games!" The post received 31,500 likes and 290 comments.

A photo posted by UniversalOrlando (@universalorlando) on Aug 1, 2016 at 2:37pm PDT

This Instagram post of a haunting photo of Hogwarts Castle at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, was most likely timed with the release of the new "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" book. The post received 45,200 likes and 688 comments in the past week.